Tuesday, 23 October 2012

White Tie Trafalgar Dinner.

Friday night was the inaugural White Tie Club Trafalgar Dinner at the East India Club. Now, The White Tie Club has had some controversy over the past week, with the Sunday Times deciding to label us 'White Tie Tories', in an article published last Sunday, and calling us 'Hitler Youth' on Twitter. Firstly, The White Tie Club has absolutely no political affiliations whatsoever, it is simply a club for people who wish to wear White Tie dress more often. After all, who doesn't like to dress up and look all pretty!? Especially with the popularity of Downton Abbey! Plus, men look awesome in white tie.

The Hitler Youth comment came after a guy posted a photo of Hitler and Goebbels dressed in white tie on the facebook group. This was posted merely as a reference on how to wear white tie, and many photographs of other people (non-Nazi's) including Churchill and Fred Astaire, were also posted. Also, not everyone in the group is a Tory, but as a few members are part of the Conservative Future, the Times jumped on it and labelled us elitist. Is it really elitist to wear a certain style of clothing? There are many who wear white tie as a uniform, including conductors of orchestra's...does that mean they are also elitist?

Anyway, rant aside, here are the photos! And please, if you feel it is elitist to want to wear a pretty dress and eat dinner with friends, do let me know. Maybe it's just me who thinks there is nothing wrong with it :/

We had a very lovely and intimate dinner setting...

Although I'm sure the menu dishes were delicious, I don't like crab or beef (fussy eater), so went for the vegetarian option, which was absolutely wonderful! My parents have eaten at the East India Club before and told me how great the food is there, and needless to say they were right!

Paul giving his wee speech on the White Tie Club and Battle of Trafalgar (the reason we had the dinner).

The back of my hair. Pretty good for a first attempt I think!

Can I have your hat? It's pretty hot.

Zach decided to give us an opera performance? Slightly random, but very entertaining!

I do love the library's in all of the private member's clubs! My favourites are the Reform Club and Savile Club libraries, they're just perfect for reading in, you feel as though you've stepped back in time!

I hope I haven't caused too much controversy with this post, but I do think the word 'elitist' is thrown around far too much. This is something I believe strongly about, so won't go into it as it'll need an entirely separate post, but to me the White Tie Club is simply a very fun group where you have the chance to dress up all pretty and pretend you're Lady Mary (everyone knows Mary is the best of the three Crawley sisters)! I'm still unsure as to how that is resembling the 'Hitler Youth'.

People are so random...I too don't see anything wrong with it. =/ Clothes are clothes really. I was thinking about clothes today...and the concept of hoodies meaning you are a criminal. Obviously I am a criminal as I wear hoodies. lol Just as supposedly white tie automatically makes you hilter youth. Who comes up with this rubbish!

I'd love something like this! Haven't dressed up since prom in 2005! ha

I guess the ST was just having a bad week for news and could think of nothing better to report about. Bit pathetic really. Oh well!

Luckily I get to attend quite a few black tie events, which means we can dress up then, but there's something much more formal and traditional about white tie, and you can go all out with a proper full-length evening gown and hair-up. It was rather lovely to use the evening gown for something other than the Christmas ball!

It's ridiculous how people are so judgemental when it comes to the idea of politics, I encountered it a lot working on student politics, where certain groups judged you if you weren't a shouty, Leftist activist. Whatever someone's political affiliations, as long as they're a decent person and I get on with them, their affiliations are irrelevant and I'm happy to be around them. But yeah, anyone who likes to have a bit of the nice things in life once in a while seems to get judged for it, which is ridiculous - I'd love to get dressed up in white tie attire and go for dinner with friends. Glad you had a good time! x